Muck-rakers and peace-makers

This is a response to the conversation that followed my blog about the culture wars. The conversation there was interesting and I wanted to re-introduce it so others could join in.

Some folks thought I was being too negative and “framing the debate” in ways that were intentionally controversial.

“You say you want to build an online community,” one person wrote. “Community denotes something very different than what you have poked people with in the last few days.”

First a caveat: I can only speak for myself here – not the News Department writ large.

But I do believe that a part of my job is to encourage debate and discussion of difficult issues.

If I were inventing these topics, the concerns raised here would be perfectly valid.

But these conflicts (specifically the culture war and the urban-rural conflict)aren’t my creations.

America is in the midst of a dramatic transition, culturally and politically. After a decade of mostly conservative governance — and a generally right-leaning zeitgeist — things are changing.

That’s interesting and hopeful, but it’s also scary, complex and, yes, divisive. (Remember, 58 million Americans voted for John McCain.)

I think it’s also fair to point out that 90% of the discussion sparked by my blog postings has been interesting and nuanced. That’s a pretty good score for the Web.

So it’s not as if the end result of my bit of pot-stirring has been harmful. People who disagree with me (or with the articles I link to) are welcome to…disagree.

One more observation:

A blog-reader was so irritated with me that they wrote, “If my support of the station is used in any way to poke and pinch, I’m checking out of the audio hotel.”

The truth is, I do see myself as a poker and a pincher. In my opinion, that’s what good journalists do.

We tell happy stories whenever we can. (I love happy stories.) But we also try to foster honest discussion of hard, painful and complex issues.

So what do you think? What role do you expect NCPR’s reporters to play? What’s the purpose of journalism? Are discussion sites like this a valuable addition to our service?